Thursday, August 24, 2006

Debunking Debunking 9/11 Myths

I just listened to the Popular Mechanics podcast about their book "Debunking 9/11 Myths."

Here it is in mp3 format.

I really expected some serious debunking and was planning on their relieving some of my paranoia and suspicion. Alas, that was not to be. With the exception of certain parts of their explanation of why the buildings fell, it was all crap. Maybe you can try to count the number of strawman arguments made. I tried to count the number of obfuscations too. Couldn't keep up.

An example: They kept referring to the confusion of the FAA and NORAD on 9/11 and saying, "See, real life is complicated. It's not like the movies. The conspiracy theorists are just naive and they think things work like the movies." This was probably the worst strawman/muddied argument in the mix, and there were plenty.

Well, that's totally ridiculous. One of the central pillars of the main conspiracy theories is that a high concentration of war games and simulations were planned on the day of 9/11 in order to confuse air traffic controllers and the air defense system. There were phantom blips all over the place. Fighters were diverted to Alaska and elsewhere. Some people were participating in one simulation over here and others were participating in another simulation over there. Vigilant Guardian, Global Guardian, Northern Vigilance, and others, were going on, all on the same day, all on 9/11/01. These operations diverted resources as well as confused people. Let's not even mention that Donald Rumsfeld changed procedure in July, 2001 so that only he could order a shootdown (well I just did). Now the pilots are distracted while commanders on the ground are powerless. Anyway, you see why the Popular Mechanics people are disingenuous to say that confusion on the part of NORAD and the FAA discredits conspiracy theories because a confused air defense system is a central pillar of the theories.

Now, why didn't they say that some of these operations aren't that big of a secret and that terrorists could find out what the operations are and when they are carried out and pick that day? That seems like a sensible answer. But they didn't pick that answer. They chose to build up strawmen and muddy the issue, which to me, destroys their credibility and makes me wonder.

The entire last third of the program is dedicated to a pop psychology discussion about why people believe kooky things (like dishonesty on the part of govt officials, or that greedy people can do sneaky and dastardly things, no way, right?) Total shit. In the middle of all their, "we are just presenting facts" BS, they sure presented a lot of opinions. The whole last third was pretty much an opinionated commentary on the psychology of paranoid weirdos. This is not the way to convince intelligent people sitting on the fence. It sure won't convert any of those "paranoid weirdos."

I will commend them for calling out one of the big sore spots of the main conspiracy theories, explosives being used to demolish the buildings. I hate this one. With the exception of their LAME explanation of why building 7 fell, they did OK (just OK) on this one.

1. Explosives are not needed to bring down a building built like WTC 1 and 2 were. They were quite unique designs. Once the central columns were damaged, stress had to be redistributed. When load bearing structures eventually gave way, there was catastrophic failure.

2. Demolishing the buildings are totally unnecessary. If indeed "they" used the terrorist attacks to justify plunderous war, hijacking planes and flying them into buildings is more than enough. The people who cried out for war with the Taliban and Al Qeada (most Americans) would be crying just the same even if the buildings had never fallen.

3. Cui bono? Nobody. Max Silverstein collecting insurance? No. It's not like someone cuts him a check for $7 billion and he rides off in an armored car with the loot. I'd really like for someone to explain in detail how anyone benefitted from the destruction of WTC 1-7. I just don't see it.

Again, the fall of WTC 7 is still a mystery to me and these guys on thishere podcast sure didn't enlighten me nor did they clear anything up for me.

Give this thing a listen. Maybe even tell me what you think.

PS - I doubt anyone cares, but the reason I haven't posted here in a while is that I'm really busy. Plus, this shit gets old quick. No one ever told me that. I wonder how some people do it for so long (o yeah, they get paid).

1 Comments:

Blogger Lazaro74 said...

Good analysis; I don't buy any of the conspiracy theories myself, but the government hasn't done itself (or us, which should really be the same thing) any favors in handling the matter. It seems like they squander every opportunity they have to get Americans to see their arguments through "it's better that you don't know this," which is largely how we got into Iraq. This is what happens when you let secrecy corrupt what I hope can still be a genuine democracy. Like I need to tell you, of course, but it pisses me off.

End of pomposity (at least here) ;).

8/26/2006 2:48 PM  

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